The mobile telephone industry has been associated with tremendous growth over the last several years. Until recently, mobile telephones were only available to those of highest economic status due to service costs and costs associated with mobile phones. Moreover, network coverage was not extensive enough to enable robust service and only areas associated with dense population were provided with extensive wireless network coverage. The mobile phones that could utilize the networks to communicate were bulky, causing transportation of the phone over any significant distance to be difficult at best.
In contrast, today's mobile devices (e.g., mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), other suitable user equipment for communication, and so forth) can be utilized as full-service computing mechanisms. For example, many of the most recent and advanced mobile devices can be associated with word processing software, web browsing software, electronic mail software, accounting software, and various other types of software. Moreover, mobile devices can be utilized as cameras, video cameras, audio recorders, and the like. Additionally, mobile devices have decreased in both size and cost and modern mobile devices are often small enough to slip into an individual's pocket without discomfort. Furthermore, network coverage has expanded to cover millions, if not billions, of users and many mobile network service providers offer phones and/or disparate devices at extremely low cost to customers who contract for service with such providers.
Many individuals have access to a personal mobile device no matter where that individual may be located (e.g., at home, in the office, while traveling, at a store, and so forth). For those individuals that sell a product, service, or other item, additional equipment must be on hand to complete a sale. Such equipment includes forms and other paperwork to capture payment information (e.g., credit card number), writing devices, credit card reader, and so forth. In addition, the individual might be required to have enough cash on hand to provide change to those customers who are paying by cash. However, there is no mechanism in place to allow an individual who is receiving payment to capture the necessary payment information while utilizing the minimum amount of equipment and without requiring such individual to carry around large sums of cash.